Initiative
by whereverwithyou
Summary: Cave Johnson begins to change his opinion on one of his new hires. Just a little Cave/Caroline oneshot set in Aperture's early days.


A/N: Okay, looks like I lied a bit about finally posting the story I've been working on for years… one-shots are just so much easier! (Plus I keep having an internal turmoil over whether or not that story is actually interesting. I promise I'll decide soon though.)

Initiative

Cave Johnson suppressed a yawn as he turned the knob and opened the door to his office. Not only was there more work to be done as a result of Aperture's recent rash of innovations, but the CEO was often finding himself too excited over the prospects they brought to be able to sleep. He walked over to his desk and placed his briefcase down next to the small clock atop it. 8:50 am. Perhaps he had just enough time to go and grab a cup of coffee before –

He had taken about two steps with this objective in mind before the sound of a typewriter curiously caught his ears. He gazed into a doorway which led to the offices of his assistants. All of the desks seemed to be empty, but still the clicking and clanging sounds continued.

_Dear God, tell me one of those mantis men hasn't escaped,_ Cave thought to himself. He glanced around for anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, and hastily grabbed a letter opener before venturing into the next room.

He passed an empty row of desks and chairs, tracing the sound to yet another entryway – _How many of these damn rooms are there?_ Cave himself had never ventured very far into the areas where Aperture's bean-counting minutiae were handled – watching the science was far more interesting.

As he turned to look within, he finally found where the noise was coming from. There, in the corner of the small auxiliary offices, was a black-haired woman engrossed in a large pile of papers on her desk.

"Caroline?" Cave asked, bewildered.

Caroline looked up with a start. "Good morning, Mr. Johnson!" she said cheerily.

"You're… here early," Cave said as he stepped into the room. He remembered hiring her a few months back, but knew she'd need a good deal of finessing and familiarizing with Aperture before she could do any serious work. Thus, aside from a few occasions where he'd asked for coffee and she'd been the one to bring it, Cave had largely forgotten about her while someone else went about accomplishing this. From the looks of the small workspace she'd been shoved into, everyone else had had the same idea.

Somehow she'd learned, however – the appearance of her desk and the focus in her expression before she'd been interrupted made Cave think of what he would look like in his own office in about an hour.

"Yes, sir," Caroline answered. "See, yesterday I was sorting through all of the mail we've gotten about the Quantum Tunneling Device, but I barely had time to reply to any of it because we kept getting phone calls from the press asking about it as well. Plus, one of the lab technicians put in a request for more test tubes, so I tried to locate an expense report to find out what quantity we usually order them in…"

"Expense report?" Cave asked. He scratched his head to hide his embarrassment. "I, uh, don't think we have those, per se… usually the government just gives us money, and we spend it."

"I know," Caroline said, gesturing with her eyes towards the piles of papers on her desk. "So, I decided to start creating them. But as I mentioned before, I wouldn't really have time during the workday, with everything else going on…"

"So…" Cave asked, noting how settled-in she looked. "How long, exactly, have you been here?"

Caroline looked at her watch. "Oh, I guess about… two and a half hours?"

Cave stared at her, doing everything he could to keep from going slackjawed.

Caroline's expression quickly turned to one of guilt. "Oh, if it's a problem with payroll, Mr. Johnson, I can leave early today…" she offered.

"No, no, it's not that," Cave clarified. "It's just – you took the initiative to come in at 6:30 in the morning to do something we didn't even ask you to?"

Caroline shrugged. "I love this company, sir," she admitted. "If there's something I can do to help it run smoother, then I don't care if it takes a little extra work on my part."

Cave began to wonder what else this secretary had accomplished since she'd started here, and why in the world he hadn't paid more attention to her. A smile crept across his face.

"I knew I was right about you, Caroline," he said. "Great stuff."

Caroline smiled bashfully and looked at the floor. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Johnson," she replied.

"And so early, too," Cave continued. "I can't believe you've been doing this for two hours. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the next ten minutes without some-"

"Coffee, sir?" Caroline interrupted, holding up a steaming mug of the stuff. She stood up and walked it over to him.

This time he probably was slackjawed. He was barely even conscious of holding out his hand to take the cup as she stepped up to him. Caroline gave him a quizzical look for a second.

"Thanks for the letter opener," she said as she took it from his outstretched hand and replaced it with the coffee mug.

_She's perfect._

"Caroline," Cave started.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Johnson?" Caroline asked, stopping in her walk back to her desk.

He could definitely get used to the sound of that.

Cave looked around at the piles of paper on her desk and the massive boxes of others gathered nearby. "We should get you a larger workspace for these sorts of projects," he said. "Follow me."

He led Caroline back into the larger room, where several employees had now claimed their desks for the workday. Cave's eyes landed on one that was still empty. "This space here seems to be free," he said.

"Um, sir, that's Neil's, he's on vacation," the man at the next desk informed him.

"Well, when he comes back from vacation, he can take another vacation," Cave replied. "To a new desk! Caroline, move all of your things in here."

"Oh, really sir?" Caroline exclaimed, admiring the size of the desk and the comfort of its chair. "Thank you, Mr. Johnson!"

Cave couldn't help but smile widely now. "No, thank you, Caroline," he answered. "Just keep doing what you're doing, and hell, you'll probably have my job in no time!" He and Caroline both laughed. Almost immediately, however, Cave put on a sterner face. "But yeah, I can't pay you for two extra hours," he said.

"Oh, I understand," Caroline said, shrugging it off.

Cave was surprised for a second by the lack of complaint he was used to hearing. "You do?" he said incredulously. Wishing not to kick a gift horse in the mouth, however, he quickly moved past it. "Well, great!" he exclaimed. "If only we had about 20 more Carolines around here!"

"Oh, Mr. Johnson…" Caroline laughed bashfully.

"And about 20 less Gregs," Cave continued, sipping his coffee.

"Hey…" came a voice from across the room.

"Shut up Greg, nobody likes you," Cave barked. He leaned in closer to Caroline. "You'll certainly get his job, that's a no-brainer."


End file.
